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Brian Rodgers

Brian Rodgers
Captain 2016

Captains Corner

Thank you all for your good wishes on taking over as your Captain. As a Member of the Association for 15 years it is a pleasure and honour to be able to contribute to the long term success of the Association and I look forward to your continued support and the friendship which makes our Association a joy to belong to.

As announced at the AGM the Tour this year will be based at Bell’s Hotel in the Forest of Dean from Sunday 19 June to Wednesday 22 June. This is a nostalgic trip for me as the Royal Forest of Dean club was the first golf club I joined 25 years ago. We will also be playing Forest Pines and our final day will be at Rolls of Monmouth. I look forward to hosting you at a great venue.

The Spring meeting this year is at Bicester on the 22 April. Captain’s Day is at Hazlemere on the 20 July and will again be combined with the Annual Dinner. As well as our County guests we will be encouraging Members to invite their own guests this year. Our final internal meeting and AGM will be at Beaconsfield on the 19 October.

In addition to the meeting outlined above we will be playing a further 14 matches on some great courses. The teams for these are picked in February and I would encourage all those picked as playing or reserves to make sure the date is fixed in their diary. In recent years we have had a number of last minute withdrawals which makes it very difficult for the match managers and also could prevent a member playing who put their name down at the start of the season but wasn’t selected as the match was oversubscribed.

I look forward to working with the committee this year and thank John Pettit who has now stood down for his enthusiasm, innovation and hard work. I’m sure John will continue to be a great ambassador for the Association. After his successful year Doug Ebdon will now be able to relax and give us the benefit of his experience. I look forward to working with Vice Captain Rob Southerden and the new members of the committee to ensure the Association has a successful long term future.

I am pleased that Derek Williams and Peter Short will continue in their roles and I will endorse the thanks they have had for the time and effort they put in. Peter has done an exceptional job in setting up the website and match admin system and introduced the match manager role which has worked very well, although we do need a couple more volunteers for this role. Peter has also asked that the role of Competition Secretary be filled to reduce his workload.I hope that we will be able to identify someone to take on this role of Competition Secretary this year.

The Association is all about its Members, without you supporting the meetings and matches, and enjoying the company of fellow captains we wouldn’t exist. Last year Doug and John made a great effort to recruit new or lapsed Members and I would encourage you all to contact your fellow Past Captains who are not Members to persuade them to join.

Finally I wish you all a very Happy New Year and good health and great golf in 2016

Best wishes
Brian